Micheal Waltrip Exec Defends Start and Park

Ty Norris is vice president and general manager of Michael Waltrip Racing. He wrote his defense of the START & PARK phenomenon from supposedly an insider's financial point of view. This article is from last year. The thesis is that with the cost of starting teams being so high, START & PARK provides a team owner the chance to build his opertion one brick at a time. Likewise, it provides a disposal means for the big shot teams who have cars and engines that don't test out to be good enough for completing an entire race. They can sell them to the bogus teams and make something.

Keeping in mind this is written by an MWR fellow and most of the START & PARK entries are Toyotas with Waltrip's crony, Phil Parsons, one of the major participants in the onerous practice perhaps this helps flush out their agenda.

The bottom line is NASCAR still struggles to be considered a major sport. Sports have rules and minimum requirements for competition. When slugs who don't bother to show up with the necessities to race and shut out possible sponsored entries, the whole process becomes a joke and NASCAR's integrity is at stake.

Others disagree, read this and see for yourself:
http://www.nascar.com/2010/news/opinion/04/29/tyme.out.tnorris.start.park/index.html

If the conclusions reached in this article are in fact NASCAR's reasons, the sport has to question its business model.


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